8 Quick Facts You Need to Know About Abortion

There is a Constitutional right to life in the United States. Amendment 5 of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights states that no one can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This was based on the Declaration of Independence, which said that all people are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that the primary purpose of government is to secure these rights. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution repeats the right to life, liberty or property and requires that every person be provided equal protection of the laws. Every president, vice-president, cabinet member, federal or Supreme Court judge, Congressman, and Senator, upon election or appointment to office, swears an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Human life and personhood begin at conception.
This is a scientifically proven and indisputable fact. According to the worldwide acclaimed geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune, at the moment of conception every chromosome that will determine every genetic trait is present at conception. At 18 days after conception the baby’s heartbeat is strong enough that a sonogram can detect it. The brain and central nervous system are working in the womb--a definite sign of life, according to The Developing Human, a textbook in embryology used by medical schools training obstetricians.

Roe v. Wade and its companion case
Doe v. Bolton legalized abortion nationwide for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
Although the Court said states have a compelling reason to regulate abortion in late pregnancy, it made the exception allowing abortion even in the third trimester if it was necessary for the mother’s health. It then defined health reasons for legal abortion as much broader than protecting the mother’s life, but said all factors of her health including physical, emotional and even the woman’s age could provide reason for legal late-term abortion. In effect, any reason for legal abortion became acceptable. (410 U.S. 197 1973)

Abortion was legalized in 1973 by Supreme Court Justices who, by their own admission, did not know when life begins and didn't consider it necessary to find out. The Roe majority stated in the decision authored by Justice Harry Blackmun,
"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.... the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."(410 U.S. 113; 93 S. Ct. 705; 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 1973)

Most Americans oppose the permissiveness of current U.S. abortion law. Polling from the respected Wirthlin polling firm showed that only 12 percent of Americans agree with the current law of unrestricted abortion throughout pregnancy. 55 percent would outlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. An additional 24 percent would allow abortion for other reasons, but outlaw it after the first trimester.

More than 1.2 million abortions happen each year, most of which for convenience. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute of Planned Parenthood (America’s largest abortion center network) hard case abortions, such as rape, incest, protecting the mother’s health, or aborting
an unborn child who may have a health problem, account for no more than 13 percent of the total.
National statistics show that nearly half of all abortions represent
repeat abortions, proving abortion is used by thousands of women as a primary method of birth control.

Preborn children undergoing abortion suffer an excruciatingly painful death. In a suction abortion, the tiny
preborn child is torn limb from limb by a high-powered vacuum nearly 30 times as strong as a home vacuum. In a D&C abortion, the
preborn child is literally sliced into pieces by a scalpel. In a D&E abortion, the abortionist cuts off the arms and legs and severs the head with forceps, before removing the body parts from the uterus and reassembling them in a basin to be sure all of the body has been removed from the mother’s uterus. In saline abortions, the baby is injected with a salt poison that burns his or her body from the inside out over a grueling three-day period before inducing miscarriage, at which time the baby is sometimes still alive and suffering. In partial-birth abortions, the baby is stabbed through the head or his skull is crushed. According to Dr. Jean Wright, Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesia and Director of Pediatric Critical Care for the Emory School of Medicine,
preborn children have a greater sense of pain than newborns, because their nervous systems are just being developed and pain sensors in unborn children produce a greater hormonal stress reaction than in newborns and adults.

Abortion is traumatic to the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of women.
According to the book Aborted Women: Silent No More, the minimum rate of immediate physical complications following legal abortions, based on reported figures, is fully ten percent; ninety percent of women who abort experience emotional and psychiatric stress following an abortion; up to 10 percent require psychiatric hospitalization or other professional treatment; 15,000 to 30,000 aborting women per year face emotional trauma severe enough to render them unable to work; women who have had abortions are nine times more likely to commit suicide than those who haven’t; and more than 200,000 American women who have had abortions have been sufficiently hurt to join post-abortion support organizations like Women Exploited by Abortion, Victims of Choice and American Victims of
Abortion.